3...2...1...
There's a heartwarming KIA ad that you may have spotted during the NCAA tournament. It features different people doing what every one of us who's even slightly a hoops fan has often done: with an object in our hands, be it a rolled-up piece of trash or a basketball, we count down "3...2...1" and then shoot the object toward a receptacle.
The ad works because it's universal and because it appeals to the daydreamer in all of us. Few of us have or will ever take a shot with much more than our own pride on the line. But it's still fun to daydream. Besides, as car ads go, it's a far, far, far better idea than having a young couple approach a vehicle in a showroom only to have the car alarm go off again and again (Hey, Volkswagen, we all hate car alarms: why would we want to tune in to one?).
So, what's this all about? Those "3...2...1" moments in the KIA ad may bring a smile to our faces. And those "3...2...1" moments in the NCAA tournament may affect your tournament bracket. Greater, though, is their potential effect on a coach's tax bracket.
Darrin Horn, 35, was until two weeks ago a bright but relatively unknown coach prospect who had guided Western Kentucky to the NCAA tournament. In one of the most exciting games of the first round, the Hilltoppers blew a 16-point lead in the final eight minutes versus Drake. The game went to overtime. With but a few seconds remaining and WKU trailing by one, Ty Rogers launched a 25-footer from the right elbow extended. Swish! Hilltoppers win.
To Horn's credit, WKU took out San Diego in the second round and then were within four points of UCLA in the second half of their Sweet 16 game. Earlier this week South Carolina hired Horn away from Western Kentucky. Horn had been earning $157,000 a year in Bowling Green, Ky. Next year his base salary will be more than five times that amount, and that's before we add on the coach's show and sneaker-deal money. Horn will likely be earning more than a$1 million next year...none of which Ty Rogers will see...although I imagine Horn will send him a wonderful Christmas present.
You just wonder whether Horn would have had that job offer if Rogers had not buried that shot. Wouldn't he be the coach whose team blew the 16-point lead in the final eight minutes?
Early on Sunday evening in Detroit, Jason Richards of Davidson, as Rogers had nine days earlier, attempted the shot of his life. It was a three-pointer hat, had it fallen, would have put the 10th-seeded Wildcats into the Final Four instead of No. 1 seed Kansas. Richards' shot, however, glanced wide left off the backboard. Kansas won, and suddenly Bill Self, who was an excellent coach whether or not that shot had fallen, became a much more in-demand one.
If KU had lost, Self would still be unfairly wearing that "Best Coach to Never Have Advance to the Final Four" label, which is just dumb. If you take three different schools to the Elite Eight in the same decade, you know how to coach. But now Self has the cache of being a Final Four coach. And the rumor out of Stillwater, Okla., is that gazillionaire T. Boone Pickens, who like Self is an OSU alum, is planning to Cowboy up a $5 million annual deal for Self to migrate one state south. Regardless of whether it is true or not, Self will be spending too much time this weekend in San Antonio explaining whether or not he is Roy Williams Redux (take Kansas to Final Four, then accept offer to coach at your alma mater all in the same week).
And what about Belmont? The Bruins came within a Justin Hare desperation three of shocking 2nd-seeded Duke in the first round. How much might that have elevated the pay-scale, or the marketability, of 54 year-old coach Rick Byrd? And it wouldn't have hurt Hare's med school application, either. What if Texas A&M's Donald Sloan had hit that last-moment shot versus UCLA? Or if the referee had called the foul on Josh Shipp that he should have?
In how much greater demand would Aggie coach Mark Turgeon be? Turgeon, a KU alum, may still be headed to Lawrence soon if Self jumps to his alma mater.
It's funny. Ty Rogers helped make his coach a lot of money this week. Just as Jason Richards inadvertently is going to make Bill Self a lot of money (you have to assume that Kansas will be hiking that salary up even if Self stays just to assuage him). Makes you wonder: maybe the least they deserve out of it is a KIA.
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NBCSports.com's John Walters goes into the world of college sports and well beyond. From Notre Dame to the latest in pop culture, JDub tackles it all.
The only way the Kia deal would be more in tune with today's college basketball fan would be, if, immediately after Joe Fan hits the bank-in 24-footer with the wad of paper, a collective of three officials spend the next nine minutes huddled around a 4-inch TV screen to determine whether or not time had expired before the paper left his hands.
I think the link to the "look where his hand is" thing is some NBCU in-house insider exclusive. All the more intrigued ...